Chapter 1—Encounter! A Wild Land Mine Appeared!

At Haruka’s request, the first place we decided to visit on our sightseeing tour was the only bookstore in town. It was a bit dark and cramped inside, but it extended back between the surrounding buildings; it felt similar to the type of used bookstore that you would usually find in an alley. However, the layout of the store was quite different from the type of used bookstores that I had been in before, since the bookshelves were all the way at the very back of the store. They were blocked off by a counter table so customers wouldn’t be able to reach the books. The closest comparison that came to mind was to a resale store. Technically speaking, there were some books that were piled up on top of a table in front of the counter, but they were very damaged and looked like they would be thrown away at any moment. The purpose of those books was probably to indicate that customers were free to read them, but books in good condition weren’t going to be free.

“So what are we here for, Haruka?” I asked. “Is it the grimoires you mentioned before that we can use as textbooks?”

“Yeah. We’ll need to learn the proper foundations of magic and level up our magic skills at some point, right?”

“That makes sense. My Fire Magic skill is still Level 1, after all...”

“Why now, though, Haruka? We’re about to head out on a long journey tomorrow, right? Won’t this luggage weigh us down?”

Touya was completely right about that, because the books that were lined up on the shelves behind the counter all seemed very thick and heavy. They would probably weigh a few kilos each if we measured them, so they definitely weren’t anywhere near as light as normal paperback books back on Earth.

“Are we still going to buy some, Haruka...?” Touya asked.

After a moment’s thought, Haruka said, “Let’s just say we’re here to research the market price for these kinds of books. Yeah, let’s put it like that.”

“Man, luggage really is a problem in real life compared to games...” I said.

Luggage would weigh us down no matter what it was, since we didn’t have some sort of magical inventory we could store things in. At the same time, that also meant that if we could manage to craft a magic bag, it wouldn’t be a problem at all.

“Excuse me, we’re looking for some grimoires. Would you happen to have any in stock?”

Haruka was speaking to an old man who was sitting in a chair behind the counter reading a book. He glanced at her briefly when he heard her.

“What kinds of grimoires?”

“We’re looking for books on the basics of magic, along with specific books about Water, Wind, Light, Fire, and Time Magic. Also, would you happen to have any alchemist encyclopedias in stock as well?”

“Hmm, give me a bit.”

He set down the book he was reading and stood up to take a few books off of the shelves that he then lined up on the counter.

“It’ll be thirty thousand Rea for the grimoire on Water Magic, thirty-six thousand Rea for the grimoire on Light Magic, and twenty-five thousand Rea for the grimoire on Fire Magic. As for alchemist encyclopedias, we’re out of them right now.”

Holy crap, they’re way more expensive than I thought they would be! I can’t believe a book is worth the equivalent of a few hundred thousand yen!

“There are two books on the basics of magic in stock. They have the same contents, but their covers are different. The cheaper one is fifteen thousand Rea, while the other one is twenty thousand Rea.”

I took a look at the two different grimoires. The cheaper one definitely looked like it was more worn out; it also had a less sturdy cover than the other one. It wasn’t like we were planning on buying a fancy display piece, so the only logical choice would be to buy the cheaper one; we didn’t care as long as the contents were the same.

“As for Wind and Time Magic, we do stock books on Wind Magic from time to time, but there’s essentially no supply of books on Time Magic.”

“I see.”

Grimoires that nobody could use wouldn’t sell at all, of course, so there was no reason for anyone to keep them in stock. There also weren’t publishing companies or wholesalers or anything like that in this world, so it seemed like it would be very difficult to obtain a book on Time Magic. Most of the books that did exist were used copies that mages or nobles had discarded, so both new books and new manuscripts were very hard to come by. There were stores that dealt in manuscripts, but to start a store like that, you would need the ability to read and write along with money and connections to obtain original copies of books. On top of that, there wasn’t much demand for books in this world in the first place, which meant that there were few such stores in existence. Well, that was what the old man told us, at least.

“Um, what about the books on this table here?” Haruka asked.

“Oh, they’re clearance goods. The price for each one is two thousand Rea, but we don’t do refunds here, even if there are pages missing.”

“Whoa, they’re quite cheap...”

Actually, wait, no, the equivalent of twenty thousand yen isn’t cheap at all for books that might have missing pages. I’d almost gotten the wrong idea because normal books were ridiculously expensive, but these used books did interest me even so. There weren’t any books that looked like they would fall apart when I picked them up, of course, but there were books that had loose or missing pages or had no covers. At the same time, that also meant it was possible there might be some interesting bargains among them, so—

“Nao, we’ll come back another time to buy books, okay?” said Haruka.

“Okay...”

I wanted to look for some good bargains here, but unfortunately, we didn’t have the luxury of taking more luggage with us at the moment. Haruka pulled me by the hand as I reluctantly turned away from the table with the clearance goods, and each of us gave the old man a shallow bow in turn.

“Thank you very much for the help. We’ll come back at another time to buy some books.”

“Hmph, sure! I’ll still be here, but I won’t count on ever seeing you again.”

Despite what he had said, the old man looked a bit happy, and we thanked him again before we left the store. The next place we headed towards was a clothing store, also at Haruka’s request.

“Don’t we have enough clothes for now...?”

Back on Earth, I would alternate between my usual clothes and pajamas—it just felt right to me—but it didn’t really matter in this world; we didn’t have to do laundry thanks to Haruka’s Purification spell. Honestly, it was so easy to keep our clothes clean that I would have been perfectly fine with just a single pair of clothes if it came down to that.

“All the clothes we’ve bought so far are cheap and sturdy, remember? Wouldn’t it be nice to upgrade our clothes to ones that feel nice to wear and look good? Food, shelter, and clothing are all important parts of life, right?”

I had an idea of what Haruka was trying to get at, but it didn’t feel like we really needed new clothes at the moment. We would wear some leather armor on top of our usual clothes when we were out for adventurer work, and if we wore our hooded cloaks on top of that, then no one would even see whether our clothes looked good. Pajamas were just pajamas. We were the only ones who would see each other’s pajamas, so it wasn’t even important that they look good.

I told Haruka I thought it was a waste of money, of course.

“Oh, new pajamas sound good as well.”

Were you even listening to what I said? It was a pain in the ass to try to change a girl’s mind when it came to clothes. That was something both Touya and I had learned in the past. I wished I could obtain a skill that would allow me to reduce the amount of time a girl would spend shopping for clothes. Should I actually try and see if I can? If such a skill exists, I’d have to put it to practice and level it up.

I glanced at Touya and he nodded back to indicate that I should go for it.

“Um, Haruka—”

We ended up spending about two hours at the clothing store. In the end, Haruka didn’t buy any new clothes, of course. The usual. I, Naofumi Kamiya, humbly accept my complete and utter defeat.

At Touya’s request, the next place we headed towards was the weapon shop. We had bought a decent weapon for Touya the other day, but Haruka and I still had low-quality weapons, so we listened to Touya when he suggested that it was about time we got new weapons as well.

“Yo, Gantz-san,” said Touya. “We’re here again.”

“Yo, so it’s you guys. Have you come to buy better weapons?”

The person who greeted us was Gantz-san; he was the one who had sold us the weapons we’d bought on our first day in this world. In the beginning, he wouldn’t greet us at all, but over time, after we had continued to visit the store to buy weapons and discuss things with him, we had gotten friendly enough with each other that he would give us advice if we asked.

“Nah, I already bought a weapon for myself, remember? We’re here to find some weapons for Haruka and Nao today.”

Gantz-san snorted in response. “Yeah, all you bought was a sword. I see your armor is still garbage, and you haven’t bought a shield yet either, right?”

Garbage...? We spent quite a decent amount of money on Touya’s armor, so surely it’s not garbage. I mean, it was much cheaper than the other armor that was on sale, but still.

“We don’t have that much spare money, but we didn’t want to buy something low quality,” said Touya. “Besides, you’ll give us a discount, right, Gantz-san?”

“Right, sure! You’re delusional. Selling stuff here is how I make a living, so there’s no way I’m gonna easily give you cheaper prices! But, well, I might think about it if you buy multiple things at once.”

What’s with that weird phrasing at the end, Gantz-san? Have you finally warmed up to us?! Well, he had already given us some discounts before, so perhaps finally wasn’t the right word.

“Besides, there’s no point in saving up money while you’re young. Money can’t be used as a weapon or as armor against monsters,” said Gantz-san. “On the other hand, if you buy a good weapon with that money, you’ll be able to protect yourself, and you can also sell it when you need to, you know?”

“What about using money to protect yourself against other humans?” Touya asked.

“It’s nothing but bait. Rookies who let on that they have money on them are just asking for trouble.”

He snorted again after he’d finished his sentence and then grimaced in frustration. We looked at each other after we’d heard what he’d said. Honestly speaking, we were also uneasy about carrying around a large amount of money. We had just been regular high school students before we’d gotten transported here, so even having just a hundred thousand yen in our purses would make us uneasy about whether we would drop or lose it all somehow. And yet we were carrying around the equivalent of about one hundred times that amount of money, and we were also in a place that was way more dangerous than Japan. There was no way we wouldn’t feel uneasy about it, and we would have wanted to place our money in a bank or something if possible. However, there was no such system in this world and no place where an individual could easily deposit money and then withdraw it later. I wish it were possible to deposit and store money in our guild card, like how it is in a typical light novel story set in a fantasy world like this!

“I’ll be frank: you guys would be easy marks if you were in a different town. You all look like obvious rookies, but rookies with money on them. Be thankful that this town is safer than others.”

We were easy marks, apparently. Should we check our backs to see if there’s some kind of sign that indicates we have money up for grabs?

“What should we do, Haruka?” I whispered.

“Gantz-san does make a good point,” Haruka whispered back. “I also feel a bit uneasy about carrying around a lot of money in our purse.”

“How about we leave about one hundred thousand Rea on us and spend the rest?” Touya suggested as he joined in our whisper chat.

“Wait, no! We need money to buy some grimoires!” I said.

“Okay then, how about we keep somewhere between two hundred and three hundred thousand Rea on us and spend the rest on weapons and armor?” Haruka asked

That would be enough for a backup fund in case we had to take days off work because one of us got sick or something. Touya and I nodded in agreement with Haruka’s suggestion.

“Are you guys done discussing?” Gantz-san asked.

“Yeah,” Haruka replied. “By the way, Gantz-san, can you tell us what exactly makes us look like easy marks?”

“The three of you look all neat and tidy, but your armor and weapons are cheap except for the one expensive-looking sword... It makes you guys look like the children of some noble family who sneaked off with a sword that belonged to their house, I guess?”

After we heard the things he’d pointed out to us, we looked at each other. It’s nowhere near the truth, but I guess it’s technically possible that we give that kind of impression?

“There’s a certain number of stupid people out there who judge others based on just how they look. If you don’t want trouble to come your way, you’ll have to change your whole look.”

“Thank you very much for the advice. Well, would you happen to have any good bows and spears in stock?”

“Sure, no problem. Give me a minute.”

Gantz-san went to the backyard and brought back two bows and two spears. He lined them up on the counter and presented them to us.

“Take a look at this bow first. It was made with wood from a monster called an Elder Treant, and the bowstring was made with silk produced by a monster called a Magi Spider. The string itself was also enhanced through a special processing method using mithril. The perk of this bow is that it lets its wielder create arrows from their own mana, so you don’t have to worry about restocking on arrows!”

Damn, that’s amazing! Now this is what I would call a magical weapon! Arrows were consumables that would both cost a lot of money and take up a lot of luggage space, so it would be very convenient if we didn’t have to restock them all the time. Perhaps this was a really good weapon.

“Hmm, I see. However, wouldn’t it be better to just straight up use magic instead of using mana to create arrows for this bow?” Haruka asked.

Gantz-san thought for a moment and then said, “That might be the case for you, but this bow can even be used by humans who can’t use magic, and you can create and release the arrows quite fast.”

If it’s a matter of speed, my Fire Arrow’s basically instant. Wouldn’t this bow be slower, since you would have to pull on the bowstring? With that in mind, this is a decent weapon for humans, but it’s not that attractive for elves...

“How much does it cost?” Haruka asked.

“It’s not that strong a bow, so it’s actually fairly cheap. It’ll cost seven million eight hundred thousand Rea.”

That was way too expensive. We could use magic, so this bow wouldn’t be worth it to us, even if the price was one-tenth of what it was now.

“No thanks. Well, it’s more like it’s not worth anything to us.”

“Damn it. I guess that makes sense, since you’re an elf. How about this one, then? It was made from a Treant branch. It doesn’t have any special effects, but it’s a well-made bow.”

Gantz-san clicked his tongue in response when Haruka said no to the first bow right away, but he probably hadn’t expected it to sell in the first place. He handed over the other bow that he had brought with him, and Haruka picked it up to get a feel for it. She pulled the bowstring a few times to test it out. The bow definitely looked like it was of good quality, but that was just as far as I could tell from looking at it. I had no idea how much it was actually worth.

“How much does this bow cost?”

“It’s just a normal bow, so it’ll be eighty thousand Rea.”

“That’s a huge drop in price compared to the first one.”

“I was just joking about that first bow earlier. I didn’t really think you would buy it.”

“I thought so. Please hold on to this bow for us and show us the spears first.”

“Sure. I recommend this one. The tip was made of yellow iron and the shaft was made from a hardwood tree called ironwood. It’s a bit heavier than your usual spear, but it’s also much sharper and sturdier!”

The ironwood shaft looked like iron at first glance, but it felt like wood to the touch, so it was quite interesting and strange. I held the spear and lightly swung it around to test it out. It did feel a bit heavy, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle.

“Ironwood is a bit different from your usual tree. It’s hard by nature, but there’s a special processing method that can make it even harder than it was in its original state. Ironwood won’t suffer a single scratch even when it’s pitted against real iron, as long as the other weapon isn’t of high quality. At the same time, it’s very flexible, which makes it the ideal kind of wood for the shaft of a spear.”

Damn, it can be better than iron? That’s amazing! There was a material back on Earth that was made by applying a special processing method to cellulose extracted from trees, which would result in a material that was lighter and harder than iron, but it looked nothing like its original wooden form.

“As for the other spear, it’s a bit special compared to the first one. It can serve as a spear, but also as a magic rod. The potency of your magic will slightly increase when you cast spells while wielding this spear. As for the spearhead, it was made by processing the fangs of a serpent monster. It isn’t as hard as yellow iron, but it’s still harder than your average iron. The biggest benefit to this spear is that it won’t rust that easily, even if you don’t take constant care of it.”

I held the spear to compare it with the ironwood one, and it was definitely easier to swing around. He’d said that the head of this spear wasn’t as hard as yellow iron, but this spear would increase the potency of my magic, which was a huge bonus. I looked at the serpent-fang spearhead, and it looked like a well-polished piece of ceramic, completely white and fragile. Let’s take a closer—

“Whoa, hold on, don’t carelessly touch the head of this spear. You’ll get poisoned if it pierces your skin.”

“Yikes!” I hastily stopped myself from flicking the tip of the spear and pulled back my finger. “Poison?”

“Yeah, poison applied via a magical processing method. It’s not physically smeared with poison, so you don’t have to worry about it when polishing the spear. The price of the yellow iron spear is fourteen thousand Rea. As for the other one, there aren’t many people who use both a spear and magic, so I’m willing to part with it for about sixteen thousand Rea.”

The tip of the spear would be poisonous even if I didn’t smear poison on it, which was a nice thing to have, but it wasn’t an option for us since we wouldn’t be able to use it for hunting. I wouldn’t be willing to eat poisoned meat, obviously, so that left the yellow iron spear as my only choice.

“By the way, Gantz-san, what exactly are things like blue iron and yellow iron?” I asked. “They’re not normal iron, right?”

The spear I wanted was made of yellow iron, and Touya’s sword happened to be made of blue iron. There were also other weapons displayed in the store that were made of black iron and red iron. The only visible difference was that the colored iron would give off a shine that had a bit of an unusual hue, but it wasn’t like a blinding flash of blue or yellow light.

“What, have you guys never heard of them before? They’re iron mixed with other things to change their nature. Alchemists are the ones that make these kinds of iron, which blacksmiths then purchase to craft things. So, what will it be?”

“I’ll take the yellow iron spear. It would be very inconvenient to poison boars when we’re hunting.”

“Oh come on, really? It’s just a magical poison, so it’s not like actual poison—it’ll go away after a bit, you know?”

“Um, nah, I’ll still go with the yellow iron spear. I prefer how the shaft feels in my hands compared to the other one.”

I’d been a bit tempted when he’d told me that the poison would disappear over time, but in the end, I decided to go with the spear that felt like it fit better in my hands. The fact that the other spear would increase the potency of my magic would’ve been great, but oh well.

“Well, that makes sense. You shouldn’t use a weapon that doesn’t feel right to you. So, are these two weapons all you’ll be buying today?”

“Actually, we might as well get a new shield for Touya along with new armor for Nao and myself,” said Haruka. “Would you happen to have anything good in stock?”

“By all means, buy as much as you can! The more you buy, the more I profit!”

He laughed happily when he heard that we would be buying more things today. His words were a bit too frank, but coming from him, they didn’t seem rude at all, since they were completely in character. He’d been quite unsociable at first, so maybe he was just slow to make new friends.

Touya discussed things with Gantz-san as he looked at the goods available. He ended up choosing a small shield for himself that was meant to be wielded on the arm. As for armor, we prioritized ease of movement and chose to get chain mail for all of us. Touya also decided to get a metal breastplate that he could wear on top of his mail, along with gauntlets and pieces of armor to protect his joints, while I decided to get some soft leather armor. Our final shopping cart ended up being quite large, so it was only natural that the sum would be quite hefty.

“That’ll be a total of five hundred and sixty thousand Rea, but I’ll give you a discount and make it five hundred and fifty thousand Rea instead. I’ll also throw some aketons in for free.”

“Whew, thanks, Gantz-san! You’re quite generous!”

“Please, I’m only giving you guys some freebies since I’m robbing you blind here! Also, how did you guys pile up this much money?! You should have spent it all here before you accumulated so much! Your lives are worth much more than your money!”

Normal clothes in this world were expensive by default, so aketons—sturdy cloth that you could wear under armor—were even more expensive. The fact that he was providing us such cloth as a freebie meant that he was worried about us despite the uncouth way he phrased his words, so he really was a good person. However, he was definitely right that we should have upgraded our armor long before now. It just hadn’t crossed our minds due to how busy we’d been; besides, we’d only really felt like we were in danger during that one battle against a wipe bear. Afterward, we had squeezed as much money as we could out of our savings to buy a new weapon for Touya, so it wasn’t like we hadn’t been thinking about our equipment at all, but still.

“I’ll finish the adjustments to the chain mail by tomorrow morning. Also, one last thing. If you don’t want to stand out, then wear something on top of the chain mail. It doesn’t matter what you wear. Even the cloaks you guys are wearing right now would do. But otherwise, the chain mail will reflect light and make you stand out a lot.”

“Thank you very much for the advice.”

“I just don’t want good-paying customers to die. After all, it would be a shame to lose a source of profit! All right, if that’s all, then leave. I’m going to be busy making adjustments to your armor!”

Gantz-san sent us off with his usual banter, and we left the store. The next place we headed towards was the general goods store, which happened to be at Haruka’s request again. The store sold accessories aimed at the average citizen along with all sorts of general goods and necessities. A real independent man would have gone out of his way to buy an accessory as a present for Haruka here, but she was the one who was in control of our wallet. Touya and I would have to burn through the allowances that she gave us if we wanted anything for ourselves, sadly. Well, I hadn’t spent any of the allowance she’d given us so far, so I still had about ten thousand Rea left on me for personal spending, which would be enough for an accessory. Hmm, all right. I’ve been quite reliant on Haruka so far, so it would be a good idea to give her a present to express my thanks. I looked at what Haruka was doing, and she was busy looking around at goods by herself. After I noticed that, I stealthily headed towards Touya.

“Hey, Touya, I’m thinking of buying an accessory to give as a present to Haruka,” I whispered. “After all, she’s helped us out a lot this whole time, right?”

His eyes went wide in astonishment when he heard what I whispered to him. “Damn, that’s a pretty good idea coming from you,” he whispered back.

“Is it really that surprising?”

“I mean, have you ever given Haruka a present aside from on her birthday?”

“Well, you’re right, but isn’t that normal?”

“Considering how much she’s helped you out, you should probably give her presents from time to time as thanks. Oh well, I’ll help fund this present, but I’ll leave it to you to choose what to get.”

“Huh? You aren’t going to help me out?”

“Nah, you have better taste when it comes to things like this. Good luck!”

Taste in presents is one of the last things you should expect from me, Touya. I have no confidence at all in myself, you know? Despite how I felt about my ability to choose presents, Touya just gave me a thumbs up and swiftly moved somewhere else in the store. Haruka would probably notice if I chased after him now to argue about it, so I sighed to myself and started to look around to see what accessories there were. The accessories in this store were aimed at ordinary citizens, so they were things that one could wear daily and that weren’t very expensive. The cheapest ones were about a few hundred Rea, and even the most expensive ones were only a few thousand Rea. It was perfectly affordable for me with my allowance money.

Now then, what should I get? A ring might be awkward, so that’s a no. What about earrings? Oh, these look good. The pair of earrings I found had what looked like blueish stones, and the shade of blue was similar to the color of Haruka’s eyes in this new world. They were also fairly small, so they probably wouldn’t be a physical burden in any way. All right, let’s go with this!

“Hey, what do you think of these earrings, Haruka? I think they would look good on you.”

She looked like her mood had immediately soured when she noticed the earrings I was showing her. Huh? Did I somehow mess up?

“Aren’t these piercings? I’ve never had my ears pierced. You know that, right, Nao?” Her look implied that there was no way I shouldn’t know this.

I paused in thought for a moment, but the only word I could come up with was “Yeah.” I completely forgot!

After that realization, I noticed that Touya was standing behind her, and he was facepalming at my mistake. You should’ve told me beforehand if you noticed, Touya! I mean, I’m at fault for not discussing things with you after I chose these earrings, but still!

“Well, in any case, we’re in different bodies now, so it’s not relevant. What, are you going to buy this as a present for me?” She sighed to herself at first, but then she looked at me with a teasing expression.

“I mean, well, it’s my way of saying thanks for all the help, so yeah.”

Ugh, I shouldn’t have forced myself to do something I’m not used to! This feels a bit embarrassing for some reason!

“Besides, To—”

I was about to mention that Touya had been in on this plan as well, but I noticed Touya was telling me to shut up with his eyes, so I stopped myself midsentence.

“To?”

“Today is the last day we’ll be in a town for a while, so I thought it would be fine to spend some money and buy you an accessory before we leave, you know?”

After I rephrased what I was about to say, Touya gave me a look that seemed to indicate that I’d done a good job. Bro, I’m the one who messed up the choice of present, but you also agreed to this idea, so what gives?

“Is that so? I guess I’ll leave it to you to choose something for me, then. I’d prefer something I could wear on a daily basis, such as a necklace.”

“What about something like a hair clip?”

Haruka’s hair had turned into a beautiful blonde color after she’d become an elf, but she would usually tie her hair up in a braid with a leather strap, since otherwise it would get in the way during combat. I brought up the idea of a hair clip because I was thinking about a more fashionable alternative.

“Hmm, it’ll probably get in the way during adventurer work, I think. I wouldn’t want a rare present from you to get damaged during combat, so I’m not too sure. Would you be willing to buy one for me once our lives are stable enough that we can consistently take days off work?”

“Yeah, sure, if we ever get the chance.”

My response was a bit ambiguous, but she still sounded happy to hear it.

“Well, I’m looking forward to it then. How about this time we go with something that won’t get in the way of combat? Can I choose what to get myself?”

“Sure, go ahead. I’m counting on your keen eye for things like this.”

If it wasn’t possible to smoothly hand over a present as a surprise, then the next best option was to just buy something that Haruka chose. I couldn’t possibly mess up that way. I listened to Haruka’s opinion and ended up buying a pendant that had the same type of stone attached to it as the earrings that I’d found earlier. As for Touya, he discreetly handed me half of what the pendant cost after I’d paid for it. I asked him if I really didn’t need to mention that the present was technically from both of us, but he told me not to say any more than I had to, so I didn’t tell Haruka about it.

The last place we decided to visit was a café. That was my request—or rather, we all wanted to visit this café. Diola-san had told us about it when we’d asked her if she knew any good places to eat and drink. She’d told us that the prices were a bit more expensive than at other places nearby, but this café had sweets on its menu, which was quite rare in this town, so we had wanted to visit as soon as we got the chance. As for how the café looked, it was pretty stylish all around, and there were tables available both inside the café and outside in a garden area. It wasn’t a fancy garden by any means, but it would definitely be a different experience to dine here. However, that also meant the prices were higher, matching the atmosphere of the place, and that included both the sweets and regular dishes. It was way more expensive than the meals that we usually had back at The Slumbering Bear. Well, this place has a different customer base, so there’s no real point in comparing them, yeah.

“The things here taste better than I expected,” said Haruka.

“Yeah, but it’s a bit expensive,” said Touya.

“Nah, the prices are right if we include a premium for the location and the fancy decor,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to come here every day, though.”

The taste of the food provided here matched the higher price, so this place was more like a restaurant that you would only visit from time to time, while The Slumbering Bear was like a diner that you would visit for meals every day. However, we were still going to enjoy our time here to the fullest extent since we’d paid for it, so we relaxed and took our time as we ordered some extra sweets to eat. Sweets like these would be dirt cheap back on Earth, but they were a rare delicacy here in this world. We took our time and slowly chewed on the sweets as we drank some tea to go along with them. The fact that we could take our time like this without being chased out was probably included in the price as well. This was the first time in a long while that we’d been able to relax without being worried about anything. However, all good things had to come to an end, and we were interrupted by someone yelling at us.

“Hey, you’re Nagai, right?! Does that mean the elves beside you are Kamiya and Azuma?!”

Hints of trouble had found us. When I looked in the direction of the voice, I saw a human girl. Based on the fact that she was cleaning up dishes, she must have been a waitress here. She was quite pretty and her face looked rather familiar, but there were visible traces of fatigue all over it.

“Uhm, would you happen to be Umezono-san...?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

Oh right, there was someone by that name in my class. I barely interacted with her at all, so I only faintly remember how she looked, but I think she was a bit different...

I turned around in my seat. “Hello. It’s been a while, Umezono-san. Are you working here?”

“Y-Yeah, although I’m just a part-time day laborer...”

When I asked her how she was doing, she stared at me, but then she replied to me without meeting my eyes. I took a glance over my shoulder and noticed that Touya and Haruka were holding a whispered conversation. They nodded at each other for some reason.

“Does that mean you’re managing to get by in this world?”

“Barely! This world is messed up! Aren’t wages in this world way too low?!”

“I mean, jobs without any risk don’t pay much, so yeah.”

“Right?! I can’t believe things are like this! Just what is the government doing?!”

Well, a government that isn’t a democracy probably doesn’t care about the average citizen, so yeah. If international affairs were peaceful and the ruler of this country was actually good at their job, then that might be different, but I had no idea what things were like for this country. In this world, there wasn’t anything like the internet that we could conveniently use to look things up, so all we could do was ask questions of people we knew. We had no idea about the specifics of what was happening out there in this world.

“M-More importantly, what skills did you guys decide to get? Tell me.”

“Our skills...?”

Among the skills that the god had made available to our class, there were a lot of gimmicky skills that were basically land mines, so I understood why she was asking me. However, would you normally just go up to someone and ask them directly about it? I guess she’s a bit bold, or rather...

“C-Come on, you can tell me! We’re classmates! We might be able to help each other out in some way!”

I had no idea what to say. There was no sense of composure in her words, and the same went for the expression on her face. Everything about her screamed that she was suspicious.

“Well, we don’t mind telling you about our skills, but what are your skills, Umezono-san?” asked Haruka.

Huh? We’re actually going to tell her? I looked at Haruka because I was surprised by what I heard, but she gave me a look that told me to shut up and play along with it.

“I took skills like Blacksmithing and Appraisal because I planned on crafting things to sell for a living, but I couldn’t even get a place to start crafting things...”

She sighed as she said that and shrugged her shoulders in an exaggerated manner. It resembled the gestures you would see from the kind of foreigners who would overreact to everything. I never knew her that well before, but was she always this type of person?

“I see. My skills are—”

Haruka told Umezono-san what her skills were, and once she was done, she told Touya and me to list our skills as well. Well, Haruka probably has some sort of plan in mind, so I’ll go along with it. I listed my skills, and then Touya listed his.

As soon as we were done, Umezono-san smirked at us. “Aha ha ha! I can’t believe you guys were so stupid and careless!” She threw the tray in her hands at a nearby table as she cackled at us. “What kind of idiot would teach other people their skills that easily in this world? Well, thanks to your stupidity, I won’t have to force myself to do work like this, so I appreciate it, you fools!”

As soon as she finished speaking, she dashed out of the café. I was completely taken aback by that sudden change in her personality, and Haruka sighed as if she was speechless.

“What the hell was that?” I asked.

“In a way, she acted about how I expected her to, but it’s like, at least finish your shift before disappearing,” said Haruka.

“Uh, I don’t really know Umezono that well, but was she always that type of person?” Touya asked.

“Well, she always had a selfish side to her, but...”

Haruka didn’t spell it out, but the way she cut off her words indicated that she hadn’t thought Umezono’s selfishness was as extreme as what we had just experienced. That made sense, since that kind of attitude would make you a social misfit back in Japan.

“Wait, she ran away from us as soon she was done hearing about our skills, so does that mean...?”

“Yeah, she had the Copy skill.”

“Actually, the Copy skill was the only skill she had,” said Touya. “Or that was the only skill Haruka could see, anyway.”

“Oh, I get it now.”

Basically, what it meant was that she had no more business with us once she was done copying our skills. Did she really have to gloat about it before running away, though? I wonder if she got deceived by someone...

“Why the Copy skill, though? Plunder would suit that personality better, wouldn’t it...?”

I had no idea how knowledgeable she was about games, but based on the initial description text alone, Plunder looked like it was much better than Copy. After all, you wouldn’t be able to use the Copy skill if you didn’t know what your target’s skills were, but Plunder had no such restrictions.

“This is just a guess, but she probably thought that Plunder had a catch to it after she compared the number of points required for Copy versus Plunder, along with the fact that Plunder has no restrictions. After all, Plunder looks way too overpowered at first glance.”

“I guess that’s a very real possibility,” I said. “The only people who would choose the Copy skill over Plunder are people who would feel guilty about stealing from other people.”

“I dunno if that’s what Umezono thought, but I highly doubt it based on the way she acted,” said Touya.

“Well, maybe she had other skills that I couldn’t see.”

“Yeah, there are still a lot of things we don’t know about skills, including the Third Eye skill.”

I would’ve loved to have gotten my hands on something like a game manual that would explain everything about skills, but such a thing did not exist in reality, sadly.

“Wait, if you don’t learn how to use the skills from the person you copied them from, then the skills will be sealed, right, Haruka?”

“Yeah.”

“So that means she won’t be able to learn any of the skills that we have,” I said.

“Damn, you’re really cruel, Haruka...”

“Oh, please! She was the one who asked us to tell her about our skills. I was just being kind by obliging her request. What happens to her afterwards is none of my business, however.”

Haruka had a very “charming” smile on her face as she said that. Well, Umezono was probably going to have a very hard time from now on, since she wouldn’t be able to learn any of the skills we had. The magic skills weren’t relevant to her, since her race was human, but she wouldn’t be able to learn skills related to the most commonly used weapons in this world. She had found out about our skills in exchange, but I guess it wasn’t really a problem. In most games, you would be able to strategize around the meta game and counter other players’ skill builds with specific gear or other skill builds, but there was no way she could do that here in this world. There was no point in worrying about it.

“Well, she can still get by somehow if she commits to doing some honest work,” said Haruka. “I’m not too sure if she has that kind of mentality, though, given that she abandoned her job here in the middle of the work day.”

“Yeah, she’s probably going to get a penalty, since it’s most likely the guild that referred her to this job.”

Trust was a cornerstone of business for the Adventurers’ Guild, so the guild probably wouldn’t provide referrals to people who didn’t take work seriously.

“Still, what was with that attitude?” I asked. “She could’ve just discussed things and asked us for help normally, right?”

“Yeah, I don’t get what she was thinking, being so aggressive for no reason,” said Touya. “Did she get a weird confidence boost after getting transported to this world?”

Touya and I looked at each other as we both pondered how strange Umezono’s actions were. A while after we started speculating, Haruka tilted her head in thought and hesitantly jumped into the discussion. “It might actually be my fault. There was a time back in Japan when she made some sarcastic comments to me...”

She didn’t go into detail about what exactly Umezono’s words had been, but there was a high chance that they had just been the result of jealousy. Haruka had the reputation of being someone who was cute, smart, and had a good personality—on top of being popular. I couldn’t really comment on that reputation, but there were definitely grounds for jealousy to build.

“So was that attitude the result of the idea that in this different world, she would be able to ‘one-up’ Haruka or something like that?” I asked.

“Her face has become much prettier than before, so maybe...”

“Wait, did the other girls actually secretly hate you, Haruka?” Touya asked. “I thought you got along with everyone just fine.”

“Uh, she was the only one who would make sarcastic comments about me, so I want to say that there wasn’t anyone else like that, but I have no idea if the other girls truly considered me a friend.”

After those initial words, she added that she was “only interested in helping out Yuki and Natsuki” to indicate they were the only ones she truly considered her friends among the other girls in our class.

“I mean, I feel the same way as you, since I can’t imagine life going well if we teamed up with our other classmates,” I said.

It would have been difficult to live together with our other classmates even back in Japan, and it was even harder here given the circumstances we were in. We didn’t exactly have that much of a buffer in terms of the stability of our lives, so we would have to put ourselves at risk if we wanted to help others out.

“I’m willing to help you two out without weighing the pros and cons, but I can’t say the same for our other classmates,” said Haruka. “For example, there’s no way they would trust me with their money, right?”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” said Touya. “I wouldn’t trust my money with anyone but you either, Haruka.”

We had spent most of the money we had earned up till now on improving Touya’s gear. It was the best choice for us as a group and had helped us protect ourselves to this day. However, we probably wouldn’t have been able to do that if we had been in a group with our other classmates. We felt the same way our other classmates probably would: neither Touya nor I would agree to let one of them manage all of our money, and we would never agree to pool our money towards improving a single classmate’s gear either. We didn’t know our classmates well enough to put our full trust in them given the circumstances we were in.

“What if Umezono bears a grudge against you for this, Haruka?” I asked. “Wouldn’t that be a bit troublesome?”

“Do you really think she would be able to gather the information she’d need to act on a grudge? You know, she would have to come to us and ask something like ‘I can’t use the skills that I copied from you guys—why is that?’”

“I definitely wouldn’t be able to do something like that if I was her!” Touya said. “That would be so shameless!”

“Right? It might be a different story if there was someone else who was able and willing to teach her about the existence of gimmicky skills, but do you think there’s anyone like that in this town aside from us?”

“It would have to be someone with the Help Guide skill, someone who had the spare time and money to help others out, and someone who Umezono could talk to with a normal attitude,” I said. “Hmm...”

So far, based on our own research, we had managed to find traces of information about what seemed to be some of our other classmates, but there was no guarantee that they would remain in this town forever. We’d also found traces of some troublemakers among them. The chance of bumping into another classmate was low in the first place, so it would be even more improbable for Umezono to get lucky and bump into someone who fit those three criteria I’d just brought up.

“She’s doomed. How pitiful...” I placed my hands together to pray for her safety on the road ahead of her. I hope from the bottom of my heart that you will manage to find success in the future.

“Do you really think that?” Haruka asked.

“Nah, not really. Her attitude earlier pissed me off a bit, honestly. Oh yeah, you didn’t mention the Help Guide earlier, right, Haruka?”

I’d noticed that she hadn’t mentioned it, so I’d kept quiet about it as well.

“Yeah. There was no point in giving her unnecessary information, right? Besides, it’s not like she can copy skills that don’t have a level.”

Cunning as always, Haruka.

“Well, the main reason why I agreed to tell her about most of our skills was because it was a chance to weaken someone who could become our enemy.”

“Huh?”

“I mean, she planned on deceiving us from the very beginning, right? That being the case, she’s definitely our enemy. She has a lot of skills that are sealed now, so now she won’t be a threat to us unless she works really hard for it, right?”

Yep, that was truly the merciless and masterfully cunning Haruka I knew. She didn’t hold back at all. Umezono had strong feelings of jealousy towards Haruka, so with that in mind, it was better to be safe than sorry. Even if Umezono didn’t become our enemy, it would still be annoying to be pestered by her in some way or another.

“Let’s return to the inn as soon as possible,” said Haruka.

“Agreed.” Touya and I both expressed that we were down with that idea.

We finished the remainder of our tea and left the café as soon as possible in case Umezono actually returned.

★★★★★★★★★

The next day, we told the inn owner that we would be leaving before we headed to pick up our armor from Gantz-san’s shop, and then we left town right afterwards. It was warm inside the armor due to how thick it was, but it was much better ventilated than our thick leather clothes, so Haruka looked like she was bouncing for joy at this improvement. Looks like Gantz-san did a good job, since the price for this was equivalent to the price of a brand-new car.

“So, Haruka, will we reach Sarstedt if we keep walking along the highway?” I asked.

“Yeah. If we walk straight down this road, then we’ll probably arrive around noon, I think?”

The average person would take about an entire day to walk that distance, while it would take half a day for adventurers who had much more stamina and were more fit. We wouldn’t encounter any dangers if we just stuck to the road, so it was technically quite a relaxing journey.

“Oh, are we not going to test out the new weapons that the two of you bought?” Touya asked.

“Well, this already feels much better and easier to use compared to my last spear, so I’m not sure if that’s needed,” I replied.

I hadn’t actually practiced with my new spear yet, but I had swung it around during self-training, and the flexibility and hardness of the ironwood shaft were great; they made it quite easy to use. I felt like I could trust my life with this spear way more than I had with the one I’d been using before. Gantz-san had definitely been right to call this the ideal wood for a spear.

“I feel the same way about my weapon. Is there a reason you brought up the subject, Touya?”

Haruka and I had shaken our heads to indicate we were fine with our weapons, but Touya didn’t seem like he was satisfied with our answers, so Haruka asked him to explain his reasoning.

“Well, how does this sound—should we gather some dindels while you two get used to your new weapons? We don’t know what kind of situation Yuki and Natsuki are in, but there’s a high chance that they haven’t been able to eat anything delicious, right?”

“That’s a good point. Dried dindels are delicious, but it’s not like they have to be dried to taste good. You okay with this idea as well, Nao?”

“Yeah, sounds good. We can also hunt for some meat while we’re at it.”

We didn’t have a reason to reject Touya’s idea—he was coming from the right place—so we strayed a bit off the road and headed towards where the dindel trees were located. We wasted no time hunting boars and harvesting dindels, which we hadn’t done in quite a while now. Once we were done, we started to head back to the highway via a game trail, but our trip back went quite differently this time.

“Hm? What’s this?”

We were about to exit the forest when Touya suddenly stopped in his tracks and tilted his head. He was in the front, so he would be the first one among us to see things in our path.

“Huh—kyaa!”

When Haruka saw what Touya was looking at, she let out a scream in a strangely cute voice. So she does have a typical girly side after all—wait, no, that’s not important right now. Touya was looking at a person collapsed on the ground, a person wearing cheap clothes.

“Is this a dead body? Given the small stature, is it a kid?” I asked.

“No, it’s probably a dwarf,” Haruka replied after an initial pause. “If you take a closer look, you’ll notice that the body is quite sturdy for someone so small.”

While Haruka pointed out what she’d noticed, she was hiding behind me and hesitantly peeking out at the body. So this is a dwarf? It’s my first time seeing one in this world.

“Uh, what are we supposed to do in cases like this? Are we supposed to leave the body alone, or are we supposed to bury it?”

“If the body has an identification card on it, it’s recommended to take that card to the Adventurers’ Guild or someplace like that. There aren’t any rewards for doing that—it’s just proper manners. Also, the person who discovered the dead body should help bury it if they can.”

“I see...”

This was actually the first time that I had encountered a dead body in this world. Death was a closer neighbor in this world than it was back on Earth, but I was still reluctant to touch the dead body of someone I didn’t know. I decided to check the condition of the body first, so I flipped the legs over before moving to check the other parts. After all, I would have to mentally prepare myself in many ways if the body was already rotting.

“Ugh...”

“Did you say something, Nao?” Haruka asked.

“No, nothing.”

“It wasn’t me either, Haruka. Hold on, is this actually a dead body? I can’t really tell how the face looks due to how thick the beard is.”

I took another look at the “dead” body after I heard what Touya said. It looked like a typical dwarf with a thick beard. The body didn’t look like it had decomposed yet, and as for the face, I couldn’t really tell if it was the face of a dead person or not. I didn’t really want to do it, but I had no choice, so I extended my hands and placed them on the neck to check the pulse.

“Hmm, I do feel something that seems like a weak pulse. I’m not too sure, though.”

“So is this person actually alive?” Haruka asked. “We should technically save them, then.”

As she checked the body for any external injuries, she added that as a general rule, this was only necessary if we had the luxury of doing so. There didn’t seem to be any injuries at all.

“Hmm, this dwarf’s gotten quite dirty. I’ll cast Purification and Light Cure to see what happens.”

The dwarf became a bit cleaner thanks to Haruka’s magic, but he still didn’t react in any visible way. It would be a problem if the dwarf couldn’t move. Hold on, this dwarf’s mouth looks rather dry. I poured a small amount of water into the dwarf’s open mouth, and his throat made a sound as he swallowed. Suddenly, he opened his eyes.

“I-I’m hungry...”

★★★★★★★★★

“Thank you very much for the help. I haven’t had any proper food to eat for the past few days...”

“D-Don’t worry about it. It’s only natural to help others out,” I said.

The dwarf had devoured three of the high-quality dindel fruits that we’d harvested before he finally calmed down, and he politely bowed to us as he expressed his gratitude. I kind of wished that he hadn’t eaten a whopping three dindels, but it wasn’t really like I could tell him to pay up, since he had at least thanked us for them. Those three dindels would fetch quite a sum on the market, but it wouldn’t be that much trouble for us to go harvest three more dindels to make up for them.

“So, what happened to you? What are you doing here in those kinds of clothes?” I asked him about his clothes because he was way too lightly equipped to enter the forest, but he didn’t answer my question. Instead, he stared at our faces one after another and then hesitantly opened his mouth to ask us a question.

“Uhm, would you happen to be Kamiya-kun? And would you two happen to be Azuma-san and Nagai-kun?”

“Hm? Wait, if you’re asking us that, does that mean you’re one of our classmates?!”

“Yeah, I am! I’m Wakabayashi! Yutaka Wakabayashi! Do you guys not recognize me?!”

“Huh?! Wakabayashi?! That Wakabayashi?!”

There was definitely someone in my class with that surname. However, the Wakabayashi I knew was someone of small stature who looked feeble and gave off a timid aura. He was a reserved type of person who didn’t stand out at all, but some girls in our class were quite fond of him. However, he didn’t resemble the dwarf in front of us at all. The small part hadn’t changed, but this dwarf was sturdy and muscular, and his voice was much deeper than it had been before.

“There’s no way we could have recognized you!” Touya exclaimed. “What happened to you?! Why do you look like that?!”

I strongly agreed with the words Touya shouted. The way Wakabayashi talked was the same as I remembered, but the huge difference in his appearance and the pitch of his voice made things feel really weird.

“Why did you choose this kind of appearance...?” I asked.

“Well, we were going to be transported to this different world, so I figured I would go for a change. I mean, it’s basically a fresh start, right? It’s not like I had any complaints about my previous body, but there was a part of me that always looked up to this type of cool, manly adult.”

“Huh, I see. Cool, you say...?”

I wouldn’t use the word cool to describe a dwarf. The excessive beard is manly in a way, yes, but cool doesn’t fit. I mean, if you’re happy about it, then I’m not going to say anything, but yeah.

“You guys look quite different as well, Kamiya-kun. Nagai-kun looks more or less the same as before aside from being a beastman now, and Azuma-san is an elf now, just like you. Well, Azuma-san already looked pretty before becoming an elf, so I guess she doesn’t look that much different from before either.”

Hold on, are you implying something about my previous face? It’d annoy me if you said yes, so I won’t ask the question, but dude!

“So yeah, what are you doing here of all places, Wakabayashi?”

“Well, I was suddenly transported to the middle of this forest, and I wandered around for a few days before I collapsed. Like, was something like a hard mode option toggled on for us? I can’t believe we were thrown out into this world with nothing but clothes!”

Wakabayashi spread his arms for emphasis as he complained about our circumstances with a strong, condemning tone. We all agreed completely with what he had said. It was better than being thrown into this world completely naked, but it was definitely not an easy start.

“Yeah, I feel exactly the same way,” I said. “We ourselves might’ve been screwed if Haruka hadn’t been with us.”

“Yep, Haruka absolutely saved us,” said Touya.

“Right, Azuma-san’s that kind of person—responsible and reliable. Based on the way you look, are you all adventurers?”

“We all registered at the Adventurers’ Guild, so I guess we technically are,” I said.

We had barely looked like typical adventurers until a few days ago, but the new equipment and armor that we had just bought earlier today would make us look like proper adventurers in the eyes of most people now. Well, we’d had weapons on us from the very beginning, but common sense in this world dictated that people like that might be ordinary citizens who went to the guild to take on work such as gathering firewood.

“I can’t really say the work we’ve been doing is what you would expect an adventurer to do, but we’ve somehow been able to sustain a livelihood,” said Haruka.

“I see. On the other hand, I haven’t even been able to reach a town. I have some money in my pockets, but I don’t even know how much it’s worth...”

He sighed as he took some coins out of his pockets and showed them to us. They looked exactly the same as the large silver coins we’d had in the beginning.

“Oh, that’s ten large silver coins. They’ll be enough to pay for the entry toll to a town, the registration fee at the Adventurers’ Guild, one night at an inn, and for a few general goods,” said Touya. “That’s it, though.”

“Really?! That’s all?! So I was right about our start in this world being difficult!”

Wakabayashi roared in frustration again after he heard Touya’s explanation. Yeah, it would be extremely difficult to make it on your own in this world if you didn’t know how to get things done.

I understood the emotions behind his yelling, but Haruka grimaced at the loud volume of his voice. “Wakabayashi-kun, can you tone down your voice? This place isn’t exactly safe.”

“O-Oh, yes, I’m sorry.”

He sounded a bit dejected as he lowered his head in apology. Haruka waved her hands lightly to indicate that she accepted his apology before she continued. “Well, you should be fine now, since you’ve made it all the way here. Were you thrown out here by yourself, Wakabayashi-kun? The three of us managed to get transported close together, luckily.”

“Whoa, I’m amazed that you guys were able to find each other in that situation we were in initially. I couldn’t tell anyone apart, so I just clung to the souls that were nearest to me.”

Oh, that was exactly the same thing I did. I hadn’t had to look around or move at all, since Haruka and Touya had found me first, which had been a big relief. What separates the people who could and couldn’t tell each other apart as souls? I’d be very depressed if the difference was how close people felt to each other deep down in their hearts...

“Didn’t you get transported together with those people?” I asked.

“No, we did manage to get transported together. I got transported together with Tanaka-kun and Takahashi-kun, but they weren’t people I knew very well, so...”

“So you guys split up?”

“I’m not sure if split up would be the right phrase for it...”

He looked down and fell silent for a few moments before he hesitantly resumed telling us what had happened to him. “Uhm, this might sound like an excuse, but I couldn’t really do anything, since I don’t have any combat-related skills, so—well, no, you see...” He once again stopped midsentence for a few moments to gather his thoughts before he continued. “The three of us did group up in the beginning while we explored this forest and camped out. We were lucky in that we didn’t get attacked by anything, and my Appraisal skill let me know what food was edible, so we were able to survive without starving—barely.”

Oh, so that’s how he managed to survive. It had been about half a month since we had gotten transported to this world, so I’d been wondering how he’d managed to survive up until now.

“We managed to reach the highway by our fourth day here. When we got there, we saw a horse-drawn carriage that was being attacked. As soon as we saw it, Tanaka-kun went, ‘Hell yeah, a typical fantasy trope!’ and dashed ahead, and then Takahashi-kun went, ‘Hmm, this’ll do just fine to test my magic on,’ and joined him. Like I said earlier, I didn’t get any combat-related skills, and I didn’t have a weapon on me either, so I hid in the forest and watched them, and...”

Yikes. I don’t really want to borrow Tanaka’s words, but that was definitely all too typical in a way.

“Uh, did Tanaka-kun have a weapon on him?” Haruka asked.

“Well, he had a wooden branch that he’d picked up in the forest.”

“It sounds like he was way stupider than I could have ever imagined...” After saying that, Haruka shrugged her shoulders to sarcastically indicate amazement. Her words were quite blunt, but I completely agreed with how she felt.

“So, how did things turn out?”

“Tanaka-kun managed to smack someone who looked like a bandit from the back when he jumped into the fray. However, he immediately got surrounded by three other bandits, and then all of them stabbed him. Takahashi-kun seemed to panic at the sight of that, since the spell he was about to cast suddenly exploded on everyone around him. When I saw that, I panicked too and ran for my life, so I don’t know what happened afterwards...”

“Okay, yeah, I have no other words to say except stupid.”

“I-I’m very sorry!”

Wakabayashi apologized reflexively when he heard what Haruka declared.

“Oh no, I’m not talking about you, Wakabayashi-kun. I’m talking about Takahashi-kun and Tanaka-kun. Nao, Touya, what do you two think about this?”

“It was a typical fantasy trope situation, but the result was pretty realistic!” said Touya.

“No, not the situation itself. I’m talking about our classmates,” said Haruka.

“Well, I think Tanaka probably had the Heroic Aptitude skill, right? I don’t think you would normally encounter a typical fantasy trope situation like that so easily,” I said. “As for Takahashi, he probably lost control of his spell because of the Mana Capacity: Ultimate skill, I guess?”

The highway we were near was relatively safe, and the chances of being attacked by bandits or monsters here was quite low. Despite that, Tanaka and the other two had just so happened to encounter a carriage that was being attacked. Like, what are the chances of that happening normally?

“Yeah, that’s probably it. Also, they were foolish to attempt combat right away in the first place.”

Yep. There’s no way you could handle combat smoothly right away, even if you had skills. I wasn’t sure if they had actually been lucky or not, given that they hadn’t gotten attacked by any goblins or animals up until that point. Tanaka’s reckless action—jumping into combat against multiple enemies—was unrelated to luck, but perhaps he’d thought that he was the hero of a story or something. Maybe he actually thought that things would go as they typically would in a fantasy scenario. Did he really think he would somehow manage to defeat the bandits and get thanked by the merchants in the carriage?

“Uhm, what are you guys talking about?”

Touya and I saw what Haruka was getting at—we all knew the catch behind the gimmicky skills that the god had offered us—but Wakabayashi seemed to be confused, since he had no idea about that. Yeah, if you don’t have the Help Guide, then there’s no way you would know that skills which were supposed to be an advantage could actually be the opposite and put you in a bad situation.

“Oh, well—”

“Hold on.”

Haruka cut me off as I was about to explain things to Wakabayashi. She looked at him and asked him to confirm some details about himself first. “Before we explain, can you tell us what your skill build is, Wakabayashi-kun? You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to, however.”

“Uh, sure, I don’t mind. It’s not really something worth hiding from the three of you, Azuma-san.”

Craft Aptitude: Blacksmithing, Level 3 Blacksmithing, Level 3 Robust, Level 2 Enhanced Muscles

Level 2 Indomitable, Level 2 Appraisal, Drunkard

Wakabayashi seemed a bit confused at first, but when he saw that Haruka was serious, he told us his skills without hesitation. His skill build looked like a standard one for someone in a crafting profession. This wasn’t actually a game, however, so it was kind of bad that he didn’t have any skills he could use in combat to actively deal damage. The level of his Blacksmithing skill was quite high, but he wouldn’t be able to put it to use without a workshop, so there was a high chance it would become a dead and useless skill, just like Touya’s Blacksmithing skill.

“Okay, your skills sound typical for a dwarf blacksmith,” said Haruka. “There are no land mines among your skills, so you’re all good. Wait—actually, doesn’t the Drunkard skill have a hidden downside?”

“Oh yeah, it does,” I replied.

Drunkard was one of the additional skills, after all. The gimmick wasn’t that bad of a demerit, however, so things could have been worse for him.

“Huh? What do you mean by a downside? Also, what do you mean by land mines...?”

“Umm, if I recall correctly, you won’t get drunk even if you drink a lot of alcohol, but it doesn’t make your body resistant to the effects of alcohol or anything. You’ll still suffer from alcohol poisoning if you drink too much.”

“Wait, what?! That’s completely different from what I had in mind for a dwarf character! It didn’t say anything about that in the skill description!”

Wakabayashi had sounded very uneasy when he’d asked for an explanation, and when he heard the details from Haruka, his eyes went wide in shock. He placed his head in his hands; he seemed very frustrated. Based on how he reacted just now, was that skill his request?

“Yeah, it’s a land mine skill with a gimmick behind it. There was a skill called the Help Guide, right? If you decided to get that skill, then it would insert additional information about every skill. It explained the gimmick in that section.”

“Ugh, so that guy was an evil god! We got absolutely scammed!”

“Yeah, I know exactly how you feel,” I said. “Well, the skills that were available from the beginning don’t have any gimmicks to them. That does mean that the skills which got added later and seemed like overpowered cheats were all land mines with some sort of negative gimmick to them, however. Drunkard’s actually not that bad compared to the other choices that were out there.”

“Besides, the ale in this world doesn’t taste very good—in fact, it tastes disgusting,” said Touya. “I wouldn’t want to drink ale even if I was offered some for free.”

Haruka and I nodded in agreement. That ale had been absolutely horrible. Wakabayashi sighed when he saw that we were nodding along with what Touya had said. His head and shoulders drooped in disappointment.

“Oh, I decided to get the Drunkard skill since it fit my image of what a dwarf should be, but I guess I didn’t take into account the possibility that there weren’t any drinks that tasted good in this world...”

We were minors, so it wasn’t like we knew what a good alcoholic beverage actually tasted like, but we definitely knew that the ale we’d tasted was disgusting.

“So, did Tanaka-kun and Takahashi-kun have land mine skills as well?”

“Yeah, most likely. Based on what you told us, Tanaka-kun probably had the Heroic Aptitude skill, which attracts trouble for its owner,” said Haruka. “As for Takahashi-kun, he probably had the Mana Capacity: Ultimate skill, which grants you a lot of mana but also makes it hard for you to control magic.”

Those two skills sounded like they could actually be useful if you somehow managed to master them, but that would probably require someone to be even more careful than Haruka was. Careful was probably not the word to describe the kind of people who would snatch those kinds of skills, however. I can’t imagine someone with a careful mentality being willing to take on those skills.

“Umm, is that also why you asked me about my skills?”

“Yeah. We would have to rethink our future interactions if you had some really dangerous land mine skills.”

“Can you tell me exactly what counts as dangerous...?”

Haruka had nonchalantly implied that she would have ditched Wakabayashi, and he seemed to squirm a bit at the thought.

“The first one that comes to mind is the Plunder skill. People with that skill might die the moment they use it, so it’s best not to associate with such people.”

“Die?!”

“Yeah, since you have to spend your own life span to use the Plunder skill,” I said. “If someone used it on us, they would probably die right on the spot. There have already been some incidents in this town that seemed to be the result of people using Plunder.”

We had no way to confirm, but that was most likely the cause of the deaths that had happened around the time we first arrived in this world.

“There’s also the Charm skill,” said Haruka. “I don’t know if it’ll work on us, but it’s bound to attract unwanted attention and trouble, so it would also be best to stay away from people with that skill. The same reasoning applies to staying away from people with the Heroic or Heroine Aptitude skills.”

Once he’d heard our explanation, Wakabayashi nodded emphatically to indicate that he understood. “I see. That makes sense. I definitely wouldn’t want to get near those kinds of people considering the threat they pose to my personal safety. I would probably have died if I’d tagged along with Tanaka-kun and Takahashi-kun back then. What about the other skills, though? Weren’t there a lot of other skills that seemed like overpowered cheats, like Copy and 2x EXP?”

“Oh, those kinds of skills just apply a huge restriction to your personal growth, but there’s no harm to them aside from that,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to team up with people who had skills like that, though.”

“Mm, yeah. I’d be willing to interact with people that have such skills as long as they didn’t take any hostile actions towards us,” said Haruka.

“Really? Skills like the 2x EXP one sound like they’d boost the speed of your personal growth, don’t they?”

“That’s what you’d normally think, yeah. A lot of people probably decided to get the 2x EXP skill because of that, but in exchange for your experience gain being doubled, it actually increases the amount of experience points you need to level up by ten times the base amount.”

“Huh?”

When he heard what Haruka said, Wakabayashi slightly tilted his head and looked at us open-mouthed. It seemed like he couldn’t believe what he had just heard. That kind of expression did fit you quite well back on Earth, but it definitely doesn’t fit you at all now with your beardy face, Wakabayashi. I hope you can somehow fix this as soon as possible.

“Basically, what it means is that if you decided to get the 2x EXP skill, your rate of personal growth will be reduced to the equivalent of one fifth of what it would have been otherwise.”

“That’s horrible...”

“As for the Copy skill, it depends on how you use it. The skills you copy will become Level 1, and you won’t be able to use those skills unless you learn how to use them directly from the person that you copied them from. Copy can be a useful skill if the person you copied from is willing to help and teach you, but it’s possible that you’ll end up being unable to learn a lot of skills if you randomly copy from strangers.”

“Uh, what’s the difference between learning skills normally and learning them that way?”

“It’s much easier to learn skills via the Copy skill, I guess? I’m not sure if it’s worth the 100-Point cost, though. The evil god did tell us that there weren’t any cheat skills available among the ones offered, after all.”

Wakabayashi sighed deeply once he had heard everything that Haruka had to say about the different kinds of gimmicky land mine skills. “Ugh, it’s like that tale about the sparrow with the slit tongue. By that, I mean for the people who ignored the warnings of a god.”

“Yeah, in that you’ll suffer a terrible fate if you choose the larger basket. Well, even if you had no points at all, you’d still have your own body and the ability to communicate, so it balances out even if you have some gimmicky skills as long as they aren’t too bad. Besides, just the fact that we’re alive again is a big bonus, right?”

Haruka was definitely right in that regard; we’d basically lucked out in that we had been brought back to life after dying. On top of that, while there were some extremely bad land mine skills like Plunder scattered throughout the list of skills that the evil god had offered us, there were also skills like Copy, which could be useful depending on how you used it. Hmm, with that in mind, I guess our fates so far haven’t been that terrible. All of us did receive a concrete benefit from that evil god.

“Now then, are you able to walk, Wakabayashi-kun? I did heal you with my magic earlier, but I want to make sure.”

“Yeah, somehow. Thank you very much.”

“All right, let’s get going, then. The highway’s just over there.”

The way he stood up and walked wasn’t exactly energetic or steady, but we were basically right next to the outskirts of the forest, so we arrived at the highway after just a few minutes. Once we arrived, Haruka turned around and looked at Wakabayashi to continue the conversation.

“You’ll reach a town called Laffan if you go down the road in this direction. Based on your skill build, I would recommend looking for manual labor at the Adventurers’ Guild. You’re highly unlikely to encounter any danger as long as you stick to the road, but do take care of yourself.”

“Uhm, where are you guys going, Azuma-san?”

“We’re going in the other direction, since we have business to deal with in a town called Sarstedt.”

Wakabayashi looked back and forth between the direction Haruka was pointing and the direction at his back. He stopped for a moment to gather resolve and then raised his voice. “Uhm! Would you guys be willing to let me team up with you? W-We’re classmates, so...”

He hesitantly glanced up at us as he said that. That doesn’t fit you at all, dude! If you’d done this in your previous body, you might have managed to activate some motherly instincts in girls who had a certain type of taste, but I can’t say the same for you now. You look like some middle-aged dude with a thick beard now, after all...

Haruka wasn’t affected at all by that look of his, of course. “I can’t really say yes to that, especially not now. I’ll be honest with you, Wakabayashi-kun. You’re dead weight to us at the moment, and we want to go look for Yuki and Natsuki right now. It’s a choice between our best friends and a mere classmate, so you should know the answer as to who’s more important, right?”

“Ugh...”

“Besides, you say that you want to team up with us, but right now, you can’t perform adventurer work that involves combat at all, right? That means we would have to pay for your living expenses until then. We might be classmates, but all I know about you is your name, Wakabayashi-kun. Do we really have an obligation to take care of and look after you and your well-being?”

Those were some harsh and cold words, but she was completely right. Wakabayashi looked at Touya and me for help, but all we did was respond with a shrug.

“It’s not like we have that much leeway right now, so yeah,” said Touya. “I mean, I probably wouldn’t have tried to help out my classmates if any of them became homeless on the streets near the train station or something. I would call an ambulance for them if they looked like they were dying, but that’s all.”

“Mm, that’s the most I would do as well, but it would be a different story if that homeless person was Nao or Touya. I would provide shelter for them and force them to fit back into society by making them find a job, no matter what it took.”

“Please, there’s no way I would become a homeless person, Haruka!” Touya objected to Haruka’s example, but Haruka just chuckled before she continued what she was saying.

“It’s just an example, Touya. There’s nothing to get mad about. Back to what I was saying: we also have a strong emotional bond with each other built on trust, and we’ve put in a lot of time and effort over the years to maintain this friendship between the three of us. That’s why we’re willing to do our best to help each other even under the circumstances we’re in now. On the other hand, you’re conveniently asking us for help even though we’ve never really interacted with each other. What do you expect me to say, Wakabayashi-kun? If you want our help, then you’ll have to appeal to reason instead of emotion.”

Wakabayashi fell completely silent after he had heard those words from Haruka.

“What kind of benefits would we get from helping you out? Are you actually a good investment for the money that we worked so hard to earn?”

“W-Well, uh, I-I can perform blacksmithing!”

He seemed like he had used up all of his brainpower to squeeze out that idea, but Haruka shook her head and shot it down. “That’s not really useful to us, since we could just go to a weapons shop for that. Blacksmithing is a potential path in life for you, but you would have to slowly perform tasks over time to build trust and connections as some blacksmith’s apprentice. It’ll take quite a long time, but you have no other choice.”

“Blacksmithing isn’t going to be easy either, you know?” said Touya. “You’d probably be better off thinking of a way to make use of your Enhanced Muscles skill.”

“This guy right here happens to have the Blacksmithing skill as well.”

“Yep, and I got slapped by reality! This skill has ended up being completely useless as of now, damn it!”

In response to my comment, Touya yelled in mild frustration, but then he laughed about it. Well, the skill itself has been useful for maintaining and polishing the knives that we use for gutting the game we hunt down, but I’m not sure if that actually counts as blacksmithing.

“You’ll have to work hard at first to fit into a town’s community. If you manage to do that and take on related work, then you might be able to become a blacksmith, since you have a high level for the Blacksmithing skill along with the aptitude skill for it.”

“Is there any way you guys would be able to help me out...?” Wakabayashi hesitantly asked us again.

Haruka shook her head once more. “No. We need to make our own way up in the world as adventurers; otherwise, we won’t be able to obtain a stable livelihood. On the other hand, your life will become stable if you stay in town and get a firm footing via blacksmith work, so our paths in life are completely different.”

“Well, yeah, you’re right, but...”

He had a look on his face that indicated discontentment. I sighed when I saw that, and I decided to throw in my own input. “What would you do about our income if we spent time helping you out? Would you pay for our expenses? There’s no way you can afford that, right? The world we’re in is one where you won’t be able to even stay at an inn if you have no income.”

“If you end up in a situation like you were in earlier where you would’ve died if we’d left you alone, then we don’t mind helping you out a bit,” said Haruka. “However, you can get by in life if you head to town and take on work. With that in mind, asking for our help now is a bit spoiled, isn’t it?”

“You sure are a harsher person than I thought you were, Haruka-san. All this time, I thought you were a kind person, but now...”

Wakabayashi had a bit of a pouting tone in his voice as he said that, but a wide smile appeared on Haruka’s face when she heard those words. That smile is actually the kind of smile Haruka has when she’s a bit annoyed, Wakabayashi. Watch out, dude.

“You’re saying I’m unkind? I, who helped you out when you were on the verge of death earlier? I won’t deny that I’m harsh, but unkind?”

“As a heads-up, Haruka doesn’t hold back against enemies, Wakabayashi,” I said. “She’ll do the equivalent of smacking a dog that fell in the river—and the equivalent of kicking a dog into a river when it’s on the verge of falling down.”

I’d given him an indirect warning that implied it would not be a good idea to get on Haruka’s bad side. Haruka just shrugged when she heard what I said.

“There’s no reason to hold back against our enemies, right? It’s not like I’m a character in some shonen manga, so I don’t believe in the idea that an enemy will become an ally later.”

Oh yeah, that’s a typical turn of events in a shonen manga. Characters who first appear as enemies show up later in the story as allies to help out when the protagonist is facing an even stronger foe, but they’re not honest about the fact that they’ve acknowledged the protagonist as an equal by that point. I don’t really mind that kind of trope, personally.

“Eliminate threats while you can. That’s my motto!”

Wakabayashi looked a bit taken aback at how confidently Haruka declared that, but Touya and I just responded with wry smiles. It was a fact that showing mercy for no good reason was worse than nothing in this world. Common sense here dictated that bandits should be killed on sight if possible, after all.

“I take care of my allies quite well. As for my enemies and betrayers, they’ll get this from me.” She made a throat-cutting gesture with her thumb as she said that. “You’re not either of those, right, Wakabayashi-kun?”

“O-Of course not, sir!”

He bobbed his head like an akabeko cow toy to declare his innocence as Haruka smiled at him. The fact that her face looked pretty only served to make her words sound scarier than they normally would.

“All right, I’ll do my best to get by in this world. Do you have any advice for me?”

He finally seemed to have accepted the idea that we weren’t going to change our minds. He nodded to indicate that he had reaffirmed his resolve to survive in this world.

“With your stamina and muscles, you’ll earn more than enough if you just take work seriously and work hard,” said Haruka. “Also, watch out and be careful of our other classmates. Do either of you two have anything to add?”

“Uh, your name would be one, I guess? We’re not using our surnames, since they would stand out, and I also changed my own name a bit to Touya.”

“Oh, so that’s why they were referring to you as Touya, Nagai-kun.”

Wakabayashi nodded in agreement with the idea, and he looked down in thought for a while before he came up with something. “Uhm, how about Tomi as a new name? That’s another way to read my first name in Japanese, after all.”

“Yeah, that sounds fine,” said Haruka.

“Okay, I’ll use that name when registering at the guild, then.”

As he nodded in response, I pondered to myself for a bit. Do I have any advice to give on my end? Haruka helped us out a lot with all sorts of things, so—oh, right, he doesn’t have someone like Haruka with him. Okay, I guess I’ll just explain in simple terms what we discussed as a course of action in the beginning.

“As for me, I’d suggest being humble and careful. Never be overconfident. Also, when you decide on a course of action, it would be a good idea to think about how you would do things—not as the new Tomi but as Yutaka Wakabayashi back on Earth.”

“What I would do as Yutaka Wakabayashi...?”

He seemed to be a bit confused by my words. Was I not clear enough?

“For example, let’s say you’ve been working in town for a bit and have managed to save up enough money to obtain a steel sword.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Now then, say that after you obtained that steel sword, someone told you about how it would be very profitable to hunt boars. Thinking about this situation as Yutaka Wakabayashi, would you seek out boars to hunt down?”

“Uh, no, I wouldn’t,” he said after pausing for a moment in thought.

“That’s right. Yutaka Wakabayashi isn’t a veteran at the hunt like some strong old farmer. You’ll most likely die if you try to hunt down a boar without a second thought. The reality of this world is nothing like easy mode in a game. In fact, as you decide on what actions to take, it would be a good idea to consider the difficulty of life in this world as more like a hell mode or nightmare mode.”

“Ha ha, so it’s tiers of difficulty above, like, super hard?”

He laughed dryly as he replied to me, but that would definitely be the right mentality to have if you cared about your own safety in this world. It would be foolish to be deceived by the fact that we could see our own skills and fall into an easygoing mindset.

“There’s no such thing as extra lives or new game plus in this world, after all. We’ve had skills and the aptitude for weapons like spears and swords bestowed on us, but we ourselves still have to spend a few hours every day practicing to get better. If you want to be able to take on combat alone, then you’ll probably have to put in more work and effort than us.”

“Okay, I’ll keep that in mind.”

“With all that information about this world in mind, I would suggest that you think carefully about what you want to do in the future,” said Haruka. “You can still provide for yourself as a blacksmith even when you get older, whereas adventurers can’t take on quests once they reach a certain age. Take that into consideration as well before making a choice.” She took thirty large silver coins out of her pockets after she said that and handed them over to Tomi. “Take this as a loan. It would be hard to get by on your first day with just ten large silver coins, after all. Things will get better for you after your second day if you don’t waste money on unnecessary things.”

“Are you sure about this?” Touya asked.

Touya sounded very surprised when he asked Haruka for confirmation, given how cold she had been towards Tomi up until now, but Haruka just nodded in response. “Yeah, I’m sure. It’ll rest easier on our consciences, right?”

“Thank you very much!”

“Take care of yourself!” I said.

“Good luck,” said Haruka.

Tomi bowed to us to express his thanks, and we were about to head our way once we saw that, but he had a few last words for us.

“Uhm!” He glanced up at us with a serious look on his face before he continued. “If I manage to grow as a person to the point where I’ll be of use to you guys, would you then be willing to let me join your party?”

“You probably wouldn’t need our help by then, but if that does happen, then we’ll think about it.”

Haruka smiled a bit after she said that and waved her hand as she turned away from him. Touya and I followed suit, and then we went our separate ways.